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34 thoughts on “News/Politics 8-24-16”

Hillary: Let’s maintain a facade of capitalism so that my voters (the Rainbow Coalition) can keep getting goodies from taxpayers and I can ask for bribes from big companies and foreign governments.

Trump: Let’s maintain a facade of capitalism so that my voters (old white people) can keep getting goodies from taxpayers and I can con foolish Americans using fake “universities”, casinos and other scams.

Ryan: Let’s recreate Reagan’s America where all people can through hard work safely try to achieve their dreams.

The Democrat aims to ignore the email and Foundation controversies, seeing a shrinking calendar as her friend.
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She is not planning on sitting for another televised armchair confessional to rehash regrets about a private email server. Nor is the campaign setting up the kind of war room employed last year to discredit a book that aimed to expose a quid-pro-quo relationship between Clinton Foundation donors and State Department officials.

With 75 days until Election Day and new emails once again casting a pall over her campaign, Hillary Clinton aims to “run out the clock,” confidants say, on the latest chapters of the overlapping controversies that have dogged her campaign since the start.

According to allies and operatives close to the campaign, Clinton’s team thinks “they can ride out” any negative reaction to a set of new emails that show Clinton Foundation officials trying to set up State Department meetings for donors during her tenure as the nation’s top diplomat.
“That doesn’t mean no response,” one Clinton team insider said, “but a muted one rather than a five-alarm fire.”

It’s a strategy borne, in part, of a belief held deeply by Hillary Clinton herself the email controversy is a fake scandal and that voters are as sick of it as the candidate herself — and by the profound weaknesses of Clinton’s opponent. …
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“I asked a successful businessman the other day what he thought about Donald Trump. He turned his thumb down. Wow. “Are you going to vote for Hillary?” I asked with trepidation. “Of course not,” he replied, almost insulted by the question. “I understand the concept of a binary decision.”

“I got a similar response when I asked oil magnate T. Boone Pickens whether he would vote for Trump. He looked at me with a quizzical expression and replied: “Well, who else is there to vote for?”

Right. Who else is there? Yet, amazingly, a caucus of lifelong Republican politicos in Washington are announcing to the world with defiance and self-righteousness that they will vote for Hillary Clinton.

They are mostly former Mitt Romney and George W. Bush operatives. They lost, and now they want people to believe that their anti-Trumpism is a principled act of heroism. They ingratiate themselves to The New York Times, Washington Post and team Clinton — the sworn enemies of free markets and conservative values.

Somehow this doesn’t offend their moral compass.

I certainly don’t mean to disparage conservatives who say they won’t vote for Trump. One’s vote is a matter of personal conscience. But to actively support Clinton is to put the other team’s jersey on and then run a lap around the stadium.

It’s worth examining the case of the Republicans for Clinton, because none of the arguments make much sense.”
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“People often ask me how I – a so-called conservative intellectual and author of “The Book of Virtues” – can support and vote for Donald Trump. I have many good reasons, but nothing on the home front is more important than the Supreme Court.

Our country can survive the occasional infelicities and improprieties of Donald Trump. But it cannot survive losing the Supreme Court to liberals and allowing them to wreck our sacred republic. It would reshape the country for decades.

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, she will, without a doubt, appoint a dyed in the wool liberal to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat, thereby giving liberals a strong five-person majority on the Court. It could get even worse if Justice Kennedy retires and Clinton replaces him with another liberal, giving them an unstoppable six seats on the Court.

We don’t know exactly what a President Trump will do, but we do know that his list of eleven potential justices is very promising and a Vice President Mike Pence and a Republican Congress led by Speaker Paul Ryan will hold his feet to the fire for good appointments. On the other hand, we know exactly what Clinton will do.

Let’s look briefly at what that will mean to us and our families.

Immigration: This past June the Supreme Court blocked Pres. Obama’s executive order on immigration that would have allowed roughly 4 million illegal aliens to stay in the country and get work permits. The case was decided on a 4-4 split in Scalia’s absence and therefore upheld the lower court’s decision. Give Clinton a liberal majority on the Supreme Court and surely she would restart this program (or create one similar) and the Court would uphold it. Millions of illegal immigrants would be granted sanctuary in our country and given the legal ability to work, thereby seizing much-needed jobs and benefits from Americans. And it could all be done by a stroke of Clinton’s pen and a pounding of the Court’s gavel; Congress would have no say in the matter.

Religious Liberty: In the highly-publicized case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby could be exempt from laws that violate its religious beliefs, in this case Obamacare’s contraception mandate. This was an enormous win for religious liberty, but it was only decided by a slim 5-4 margin. With a liberal majority, you can expect the Court to rule against companies like Hobby Lobby or non-profits like Little Sisters of the Poor. Religious corporations and organizations around the country would be forced to chose between violating their consciences or paying penalties that would likely put them out of business. If liberals have their way, say goodbye to many religious retailers, charities, bookstores, hospitals, medical centers, and so on.”

“NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation’s records show.
The donations, which range from the low-thousands to the millions, provide a picture of the media industry’s ties to the Clinton Foundation at a time when one of its most notable personalities, George Stephanopoulos, is under scrutiny for not disclosing his own $75,000 contribution when reporting on the foundation.
The list also includes mass media groups like Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom, as well a few notable individuals, including Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Both Slim and Murdoch have given between $1 million to $5 million, respectively.
Judy Woodruff, the co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, gave $250 to the foundation’s “Clinton Haiti Relief Fund” in 2010.
The following list includes news media organizations that have donated to the foundation, as well as other media networks, companies, foundations or individuals that have donated. It is organized by the size of the contribution:
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch
Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media
Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters
Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,000-$1,000,000
Google”
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No, Ricky, its too bad for the American people. Sanders is a true independent whereas Ryan is just another Republican.

I’m not surprised Bush, Romney, Kaisch, etc are voting for Clinton — she’s the capitalist right of centre candidate. She’s the establishment. Trump may or may not be — who knows.

Clinton will appoint socially liberal and economically conservative judges. Judges who will uphold the status quo of American society. Nothing radical.

Pay for play is standard small town politics. The Clintons may have taken it to a whole new level but there’s a reason the Republican Congress isn’t diving to deep into this — they play the same game. Some (not all) can be avoided through campaign financing rules, campaign spending rules, and limits on post-elected office careers. If those who pretend to be horrified by corruption, proposed means to avoid it as opposed to proposing partisan style investigations, then perhaps they can be taken seriously.

Then why run for the Dem party nomination and not as an independent 3rd party?

And why is he constantly in lock step with how the Dems’ vote?

He’s an independent because the left wing voters who put him in office over and over again demand he be, at least on first appearance. But his actions show, he’s a Dem, albeit a far left nut job progressive version.

“The Great White Whale of the #NeverTrump movement may have just been downgraded to a minnow. Evan McMullin never seemed to have even a theoretical chance of winning the presidency even if you looked no further than the electoral college math, but now those hypothetical chances have gotten even slimmer. The major group supporting his efforts to get on the ballot – Better for America – is throwing in the towel and closing up shop only weeks after McMullin took the dive into the election pool. (Washington Post)

Better for America, the group that attempted to entice a #NeverTrump candidate into the presidential race by promising him mass ballot access, has folded after falling short.

“While polling continues to show that the electorate is dissatisfied with both candidates, and believes the country to be on the wrong track, the opportunity for BFA to influence this election cycle has diminished over the summer months, and BFA will therefore end its candidate recruitment and ballot access efforts,” the group explained in a statement.

Launched only after Donald Trump began winning primaries, Better for America did not even play in as many states as 2012’s star-crossed (but well-funded) Americans Elect. But while Americans Elect never found a candidate, Better for America seemed primed for one: Evan McMullin, the former House Republican policy aide now running to give anti-Trump voters a choice.

This is essentially the death knell for a candidacy which never had any legs to begin with. There was a lot that McMullin could do under the current, unsettled circumstances of the political landscape and he exploited what was available to him. The media loves to talk about Republican internecine warfare, so seeing a conservative candidate announce was tempting bait and they gave Evan far more earned media than someone with his lack of campaign apparatus should ever have earned. There are big names opposing Trump out there, and if McMullin had gotten even a hint of a head of steam he could have collected some significant (though not overwhelming) cash to run ads and finance whatever campaign staff he assembled.”

“UPDATE: (Jazz) Immediately upon publication we received some pushback from people close to both Better for America and the McMullin campaign. They wanted to point out that the national entity known as Better for America was a was a 501(c)4 which can not legally endorse any candidate, but various state level entities are forming or have already formed. This includes the “Better for America Party of Arkansas” which has endorsed McMullin.”
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Despite their attempts, they won’t be on the ballot in any state where it matters, except for maybe Utah.

HRW, When I was in DC 35 years ago, there was a distinction between small businesses and big businesses such as the automakers, big pharma and the big banks (generally represented by the US Chamber of Commerce and individual industry associations).

Small businesses, which create most jobs, generally wanted a level playing field. Big businesses were always after tariffs, special tax breaks, quotas on imports, etc.

Big business always gave to the party in power. Small business tended to give to conservatives. Small business liked Reagan and likes Ryan. Big business can be bought.

A concern about Trump is that he is really after acceptance and respect from the liberal elites such as the NY Times and the Washington Post. Just as he paid Hillary to come to his third wedding and tried to weasel his way into Chelsea’s wedding, I could see Minimum wage increases, enviro regs, and more socialism just to try to make the big liberals love him.

AJ, McMullin has never been about McMullin. His candidacy is to give conservatives a decent candidate to vote for before they vote for conservatives for Congress. His support will grow if people find Trump and Hillary equally repulsive and think Trump will be blown out. If the election is close, many Never Trumpers will vote for the Orange lunatic.

So HRW, I know you think your side lost when Sanders was defeated and I know we share the view that Trump, because of his temperament, personality disorders, dishonesty and ignorance, is completely unsuited to be President. However, when you consider his obvious desire to be loved and accepted by the New York liberal elite, Trump as President might make you happier than Clinton, provided he doesn’t start a nuclear war or a trade war that leads to a depression.

You can make a distinction between small business and corporations but I don’t think the former has a voice in the republican party. Corporations can’t be bought; they do the buying and they buy both parties. I don’t think Reagan or Ryan are any different than the elites on both sides of the aisle.

They was a distinction in the 1980s. One example: Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986 which was favored by small business and opposed by big business. It’s sponsors were Bill Bradley and Dick Gephardt, two moderate Democrats (now an extinct species).

Jack Kemp was the conservatives’ favorite to follow Reagan. He was a small business guy who always carried the black vote in his district. Ryan worked for Kemp. He strikes me as a smarter, but less charasmatic version of his mentor.

Come on, HRW. Help me out. Tell them you think Trump might wind up being more liberal than Hillary.

The Tax Reform of 1986 brought in the Earned Income Credit did it not? Isn’t that considered a problem by some conservatives as it allows some to escape taxes altogether and if done properly may result in a payment to the taxpayer — i.e. a subsidy of low wages.

I met Kemp when he ran against Bush Sr, “Met” is a strong word. I saw him in the Iowa primary. If you live in Northwest Iowa, you can see just about any major conservative politician every four years. Didn’t know much about him but even then I thought he was too conservative — mind you this was during my Dead Kennedy’s phase when I knew the lyrics to “Rambozo the Clown”.

Trump is unpredictable so he might well end up more liberal than Clinton in some areas. He will be as corporatist or corrupt as Clinton in terms of the economy — he will favour the corporate elite who pay to play — I’m sure he’s looking forward to the players and it will be obvious and he won’t care. Step one will be to stop the IRS checking his taxes.

In foreign affairs, he’s too unpredictable and won’t be seen as reliable by America’s allies. His friendship with Putin will be a problem in the Baltics, the Ukraine and the “stans”. I think he will wake up when Putin gets involved in central Europe but then again he has some personal money tied up in Russia so who knows.

In social policy, I think the social conservatives here will be disappointed. His European wife (and other females) will be a subtle or not so subtle influence here and I can see him being more liberal than Hilary. The fact is, he doesn’t really care about social issues and will do what will keep the people closest to him happy.

The Earned Income Credit was in existence before Reagan took office, and long before 1986. The amount of the credit and its applicability has been expanded many times. The result is that millions of Americans are getting welfare and don’t know it. They are getting a tax refund for income taxes they never paid.

I heard a guy on FoxNews talk about an analysis of voters he made.
He said that on each side, more people are voting to keep the other person out.
i.e. The reason I’m voting for Trump.
He doesn’t think the Iranians are friends.
He doesn’t think the police are enemies.
He isn’t Hillary.

Ricky, i do taxes for some of my low wage/seasonal worker friends. Even though they are paid mostly in cash they file a tax return to collect sales tax refund. Canada has a similar earned income credit and after i told a friend how much his return would be if he earned “x” amount, he miraculously produced receipts for that amount.

“The result is that millions of Americans are getting welfare and don’t know it. They are getting a tax refund for income taxes they never paid.”

I disagree. They know exactly what they are doing, and getting. They also know they didn’t pay it in. They mistakenly assume it’s free money, but the people they’re taking it from know better.

It’s also one of the reason younger gens aren’t getting married. I know of 3 families on my block alone where they have lived together for over a decade and have multiple children. They’ll tell you flat out that they won’t get married because they’d lose several grand a year. So the women in each house makes less. therefore they claim the kids and the EIC is larger the less you make. The guy just files his return as single and gets a return of his own. They get married, both incomes are counted and they’re no longer eligible. Everyone knows how to milk the EIC, and know full well what they’re doing.

The Conservative party in Canada gave us the EIC about ten years ago. They felt it would encourage people to work instead of collect welfare. The left called it a wage subsidy and said it would make more sense to raise the minimum wage so people didn’t need or couldn’t claim the EIC. I of course agree with the left.

AJ — simple solution, broaden the definition of marriage for the purposes of taxation. In Canada you are considered legally married if while having a conjugal relationship you do any of following; sign a joint lease, mortgage or similar paper, live together for at least six months, have a joint financial relationships (banking, credit, loan, lease, etc) etc. Just one of those plus sex equals marriage in the eyes of the tax dept.

Ricky — Reagan would not recognize today’s Republican party and they would not vote for him. His position on gun control and taxation alone would disqualify him. Write in Sanders instead not because you want him to win but because he scares the establishment more than Trump, Johnson, or Mcmullin put together. Clinton of course is the establishment.

His tax polices were probably more sane than the current Republican politicians in that he knew taxes weren’t completely evil and were needed. However, he did increase the debt because of his tax cuts. His increase in military spending meant that he didn’t actually reduce domestic spending only shuffled it to a different department.

His policies in Central America were a continuation of American tradition — Monroe Doctrine etc. He simply repressed peasant revolts (that were aided by outside influence) and reasserted American corporate interests — not much different than Teddy Roosevelt for example. In fact, its similar to Clinton and Obama in Honduras.

Trump demanded a full investigation of the Clinton Foundation and its donors. The Clinton campaign wanted to know if that included Trump since he donated over 100K. Here’s polifacat on the Foundation

An other reason Republican politicians may support Clinton — she’s consistent and competent whereas Trump is inconsistent and only about himself. Why would they support him when Republicans who support him become his errand boys and fetch McDonald milkshakes for him. And now Coulter can’t trust him to be consistent on his policies.

HRW,
What is the 50% rise in the minimum wage over 4 years going to do to the buying power of our $200,000 cash in annuities?
Will our teachers retirement system give us a 50% raise over the next 4 years?
Tell us how it is good for those of us who either saved money or are on a fixed retirement?
Tell me how Democrats are “FOR” the retired?!!